


coming back for me

by imprintofadream (imprint_of_a_doe)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-16
Updated: 2011-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-26 03:43:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imprint_of_a_doe/pseuds/imprintofadream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>And then he thinks of a hand around his arm, not to hurt, not to soothe, but to save. He remembers, somehow, that there are people in the world--two, to be precise--who thought his life worthwhile. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	coming back for me

**Author's Note:**

> **warnings:** violence, mostly off-screen; possible trigger for panic attack. abuse of purposeful run-on sentences.
> 
>  **notes:** the words in my scene breaks are not my words; they are lines taken from songs i happened to be listening to at the time i reached said scene breaks and i don’t know where this whole thing came from, only that it’s here and that it’s a little confusing and that [mentalistecbm](http://mentalistecbm.livejournal.com/) and [phoenixnoor](http://phoenixnoor.livejournal.com/) looked it over for me. title from 'letters from the sky' by Civil Twilight.

  


**coming back for me**

 

{beating like a hammer}

“If I see you here again, I’ll kill you.”

Arthur scrambles away from the stoop, swallowing harshly, his fingers swiping blood on the cement. He’s up on his feet and moving within seconds, steps jarring his ribs, his wrist, breathing harsh and uneven.

He runs into someone, pushes away from them without a word of apology--he thinks he leaves bloodstains on the man’s shirt but he doesn’t stop to check. He is fleeing and he has every reason to be hasty about it.

Years later, he’ll find himself wishing he’d stopped for just that moment, spared one second to spit out a ‘sorry’... he wishes he had seen him, had looked into the man’s face and memorized it.

It would have been easy.

{all the lovers with no time for me}

Arthur isn’t used to working with unknown variables. He doesn’t like it--really, he honestly _hates_ it. It’s a control thing, he knows this--it never makes it easier to handle. As he understands it, he’s their _point_ , the man in charge of all the details.

Details like putting their team together and researching the best people for a specific task. Details like knowing the particulars of a job. Details like, of all things, knowing about the mark and knowing about anybody after them and knowing about any and all dangers inside and out.

Unknown variables leave opportunities for such dangers.

Mal flicks his forehead when he voices his concerns, waves her hand imperiously at him when he tries again, muttering to herself and dragging the end of a pen back and forth across her bottom lip. “Look at this, will you? Does it need anything? Too simple or not simple enough?”

He blinks at her, breath tight in his chest. She hasn’t listened to a word he’s said, as per usual, and so he leans forward and looks at the maze she’s working on. Taps his finger and says, “You could add Penrose steps here, if you wanted, but they’re not exactly necessary if this is a routine run.”

“Whatever gave you the idea _any_ job in this business is routine, Arthur?” Mal flicks blue eyes up to meet his, eyebrows raised expectantly. Even with the ink on her cheek and her chin and her nose, absent brushes of the pen, she’s beautiful. “You’re new, darling, but you’re going to be good when you finally learn, I’ll make sure of it.”

{the rain had washed away all these scattered dreams}

As it turns out, they’re both right. There really aren’t routine jobs because each one is unique based on the mark and the dreamers. But details _are_ important.

Mal takes off to work with a different point man and comes back to him with a ragged new scar across her ribs three months later. She doesn’t talk about it, but she gives him all the information he wants now, asks for his input on more than just the mazes, lets him do as he wishes to prepare.

He brushes his hand across her cheek when she sleeps and wishes she’d listened sooner.

Nothing goes wrong for two years.

{would you kill to prove you’re right?}

“Arthur, tell me.”

He tries to shrug but he knows it comes off as more of a shudder. He can’t look at her, not until he’s back under control. There’s a pistol tucked in the back of his pants, pressing close. It’s not as comforting as it could be.

The die on the table comes up three again and he covers it with his hand. If he can’t see it, it’s not true. Child’s logic is his only refuge here, because grown-up logic will change everything.

Mal touches his spine and he snaps away, regrets it when he sees her face. She looks at him with those same eyes, darker than when he first met her, and turns to go back to the other room and the client who must be reconsidering.

“Wait, Mal--”

“My apologies, monsieur, but I’m afraid my team is not ready to take on such a task,” he hears, and he stands motionless, head pounding, pulse loud in his veins. He wonders if the client got a look at him, if he’s recognizable as the person he was three years ago--or is it four now?

Mal’s got her scar, and he’s got his. Many of them.

“You’re the best, of course you can fucking do it,” he hears, and the man is argumentative, angry. Arthur is torn between moving forward to pull Mal away, to step in front of her, and running--running until he’s looking back only on ghosts.

Mal doesn’t say anything, but a minute later Arthur hears the door slam. He doesn’t move as she steps back into the office, lips pursed. She stares at him, eyes flicking down to his fists, and sighs. “Mon cher, have you any idea how scary you are when you’re frightened?”

He has more than an idea.

{don’t want to forget how it feels}

Dominic Cobb is both brilliant and insane. Arthur tries to stay away from him at first because, for all Mal seems to like him on the team, something about him rubs Arthur the wrong way. The first time they go down into a dream together, Cobb’s projections populate Arthur’s dreamscape and make quick work of all of his careful mazes. They find Mal first--capture and not kill--and then they find Arthur and he struggles and he fights and then he’s left gasping as he watches his intestines spilling out of his stomach with no idea how it happened.

He doesn’t die from that, somehow, and it’s excruciating.

Dom puts a bullet through his head when he finds him and Arthur throws up in the bathroom before he or Mal wake up.

He never thought he’d be thankful to anyone for shooting him.

{and I know you}

He can’t work with Dom on the next job. After a lot of research and asking around in the dream community, he finds a replacement point to take care of the job for them--he intimidates the woman until he’s sure she’ll get Mal out safely, and then he leaves.

Arthur doesn’t have a goal in mind, but he ends up in Luxembourg, and then in Barcelona, and then in Prague, which quickly becomes his favorite. So he settles in for a short job with a different team, and this is where he meets Eames.

He watches the man, observes his habits and his movements and his work, and he is uncomfortable, because Eames watches back as if he’s making a study of Arthur, too.

Arthur doesn’t want to be studied.

He goes back to Mal and Dom as soon as the job is finished, his affection for the city and his wariness about Cobb be damned.

{if you take my hand I’m gonna get you out of here}

Mal teaches him to play piano and Dom teaches him to make his mazes better and Arthur enrolls in classes to improve his hand to hand combat skills. He fills his free time with work--with plans, with research, with details, details, details--and throws himself into life without any breaks for reminiscing or feeling.

There are whispers he searches for throughout it all, attempts to avoid and postpone. Mal knows, and Dom probably suspects, but they don’t bring it up. They do their work and somehow maybe form something like a friendship--tentative and dishonest and still full of care despite this. Arthur thinks he shouldn’t care about them, but then he would care about nothing, and there would be relatively little point to living if he cared for nothing.

They don’t ask each other about their scars, their stories from Before, the reason any of them are in this business. Mal doesn’t ask because she knows Arthur’s story all too well. She’d found him, after all, saved him, given him a chance. He tries very hard never to let her down. Dom doesn’t ask because he’d have to trade his own story, and Arthur knows he’s very reluctant to do so. (It doesn’t stop Arthur from digging out details from others in the community--he has to be sure Dom is trustworthy enough to keep Mal safe).

But then something strange happens when Mal and Dom are testing a dream layer, both of them under while he watches over them, and they wake up and look at each other and he has to leave the room.

He ends up in Prague again, and this time he doesn’t leave until Mal calls him from Paris and asks him to come back.

{time is standing still}

There’s this job, she says, and they need him because it’s _big_ and there are nuances Mal is sure they’ll overlook without him and it’s dangerous but he’s allowed to say no, he’s always allowed to say no, maybe he should.

He shows up outside her Paris apartment a day later and she kisses his cheek and squeezes his hands in a way that feels like the only semblance of home he knows.

But he finds this little sanctuary has been invaded. Dom lives with her now--he knew that part, tries not to mind because Mal was _his_ first, Mal is always going to be _his_ no matter how Dom claims her--but there’s an extra on her floral-print sofa, lounging with his feet up on the coffee table and an interested grin on his face as he listens to Dom. Arthur feels his lips thin out, feels his gaze narrow, and Dom looks up at him with a crinkly-eyed smile. “You’re back. We missed you.”

Eames glances back over his shoulder and his smile widens, challenge flaring brightly in his eyes. “Your point man, I presume?” he asks, and the British accent is playful, teasing, and Arthur doesn’t know if it’s fake. “No wonder he fled the city so quickly, even after he’d made such a wonderful name for himself.”

“You know Arthur?” Mal asks, and her fingers press against the back of his elbow, her body weight shifting toward him.

“Indeed. We did a job in Prague about a year ago.”

Mal frowns, thrown off balance for a moment, but Dom looks at her and they have this silent, rushed conversation and she sighs, pulls Arthur around to sit on the arm of the chair she claims. “Well. I suppose it’s good you know how to work with each other.”

“ _Around_ each other,” Arthur mutters, staring out the window. It’s raining, dark and gloomy and cleansing. The tree branches outside their apartment thrash in the wind, wild, unbridled, scraping against the glass of their balcony doors every so often.

Dom clears his throat and draws Arthur’s attention back, launching into details of the job. Eames is necessary for some reason Arthur disagrees with on principle, and it’s this that is most telling. Arthur does not let things get in the way of his work; he accepts that if it’s needed, it’s needed, and then he gets it. But Eames makes him uncomfortable, still, and the only other person Arthur has ever been this uncomfortable around is someone he avoids by using all of his considerable skill to do so.

Mal keeps hold of him through the meeting, only releases him to stand up and shake Eames’ hand before Dom escorts him out. Arthur merely looks at him when Eames tries, receives a raised eyebrow for his trouble, and then he’s gone and it’s Mal and Arthur left.

She settles on the couch again, tilts her head, and he falls in next to her, lets her lean on his shoulder. “Are you okay, mon cher? You’re tense. You’re not angry with us?”

“No,” he assures her, letting his eyes fall closed.

“Is it Eames, then? Should we find someone else instead?”

Arthur waits a moment, thinks it over--longingly, so longingly--and shakes his head. “No, he’s brilliant at what he does. He won’t fuck us over.”

“Then what’s up with you?” Dom comes back in, three beers in hand, and sits on Mal’s other side, distributing.

Arthur shrugs, yawns and rolls his beer between his palms. “It’s nothing. I’m just tired,” he lies.

{as hard as I did}

“Arthur.”

He does not tense in his chair, does not let the pencil in his hand skitter out to the side across the maze he’s looking over for Dom. He makes a point to know where Eames is so that he’s never surprised, though he’ll never admit it to anyone. Indeed, he won’t admit he has any problems at all. “What?”

Eames leans against his desk, crowding his space, and Arthur slowly looks up at him. His fingers tighten around the pencil.

“I’m having a little question of believability with the forge. Dom says it looks good but then, from what I gathered, he let Mal hire Carrow when you were off gallivanting wherever you were, and _everyone_ knows Carrow’s just barely passable.” Eames snatches a paperweight off the desk, tosses it up and catches it, repeats, repeats, always looking at Arthur. Arthur will not look away because he has something to prove. “But you, you know your details. You’d be able to tell me if it’s anywhere near the caliber we need for the job. And you dislike me, so you’re more likely to be honest if I’m terrible.”

Arthur feels his jaw tensing, his thoughts rapidly flitting from stabbing Eames in the neck with his pencil to _she hired fucking **Carrow?** How are they even still **alive?**_ to compartmentalizing for the job. He stands, drops the pencil and loosens his tie, starts on the cuffs of his shirt. “Fine. I can’t spare too much time.”

“It’s time down there, barely anything up here,” Eames reminds him, cheerfully, and Arthur already regrets this. He checks the somnacin, sets the timer, and forces himself to lie down and shove the IV into his veins. He waits until Eames is settled before pushing the plunger and falling into the dream.

Eames’ dreamscape is a crude copy of the one Dom will be providing, his lines messy and smudged. Arthur stops looking because it’s making him nauseous, and instead turns his attention onto Eames.

He’s looking at his reflection in a shop window, tilting his head this way and that, flaring his fingers, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet, and then Arthur blinks and he’s staring at a young woman with bright hair and a dark mouth.

She turns around, smirks and lowers her eyelashes at him, saunters forward on four-inch heels. It’s disconcerting to know Eames, who has a good twenty pounds of muscle over him, can _saunter_ in heels like he does it every day, like his real body is the forge and this is his natural form. Arthur remembers the disorientation from the job in Prague, remembers his grudging respect for the man’s talent.

“Well?” she says, and her voice is husky, low, seductive like a smoker’s or someone recently fucked. Arthur flicks his eyes up and down, gestures for her to spin in place, follows the swing of her hips and watches her hands, the tilt of her head, the way she holds her shoulders. He’s seen the real mark before, but he wishes he’d paid more attention.

“Looks good to me but then I don’t know her at all, really.”

Arthur takes out his Sig, flicks the safety off, but before he can lift it to his temple she’s wrapped her hand around his wrist and torn it from his grasp. He stumbles back, ducking instinctively. She flickers once and then Eames is standing in her place, grinning at him. “Impressive, no?”

His blood is fast in his veins, his wrist burning where she’d touched him, and his eyes fall on the gun lying in the street. “What do you want?” His voice is harsh, clipped; he hopes the level of panic is disguised by brisk annoyance, that the sliver of fear in his spine isn’t obvious.

Eames sighs, turns to pick up the gun, and Arthur isn’t as nervous now. He could shoot him and it would all end and then he could go throw up topside and it’d all be back to normal. Up there, he at least knows to be aware of Eames at all times, not drawn into a false sense of security because he’s facing off against a twenty-year old university cheerleader. He was unprepared, he wasn’t ready, _why wasn’t I ready, Eames **touched** me, **touched** me, he **touched** me--._

But Eames sticks the gun in his waistband and looks back at Arthur, something serious in his expression. Arthur does not allow his foot to slide backward.

“Would you mind terribly explaining what it is about me that sets you so on edge? Or what it is about everything that sets you so on edge? And don’t give me that _‘we’re all criminals, we have to be vigilant_ ’ shit, either.”

Arthur glares at him, crosses his arms--stubborn, annoyed, _not_ uncomfortable. “What gives you the impression that I’m ‘on edge,’ as you say?”

“Well, let’s do a compare and contrast, hmm? You with Mal: relaxed, easy, circling her. You with everyone else: tense, wary, circling them. You with me: ready to stab me with a pencil should I do something to offset you.” Eames lifts an eyebrow and Arthur breathes in sharply. He’d forgotten-- _how had he forgotten_ \--that Eames studies him just as he studies Eames. “Yes, I noticed that. I’d really like to avoid getting killed by you or alternately _killing_ you, by the by, so it’d be simpler if we figured our shit out, right?”

Arthur stands still, focuses on continuing to breathe evenly and stand casually, and then Eames is flat on the street and Arthur’s Sig is in his hand and against his temple and--

He tears out the IV, launches himself toward the first floor of the apartment they’re stationed in, is at the door before he hears Eames cursing above him.

He throws up in an alleyway, shaking and panting, a hand pressed against cold brick to steady himself, and doesn’t go back in until he sees Mal arrive an hour later.

{where did you read my story?}

The job is fine, because Arthur can be a professional. He does not shoot Eames, does not acknowledge him beyond full team meetings, and as soon as they’re done with the mark, he gives him the number of the account his pay will be wired to and then disappears.

He waits a week before he slinks back to Mal and Dom, stays on their couch for three days after that while he finds an apartment for himself. Mal remarks that it’s good he’s staying because at least she can be sure he’s sleeping and it’s doing him a world of good.

Arthur stays in Paris for three months and then a job goes badly and he’s back to travelling, promising to meet Mal and Dom in Zürich in two months.

He finds work in Stuttgart, and then in Vienna, back to Prague, to Barcelona again, to Ghent. He stays in Europe, flitting in with different groups, keeping his feelers out for updates on a few specific people.

Mal and Dom are in the US keeping a low profile; Eames is in Africa somewhere doing god knows what; and--

And Arthur’s father is in London, is in New York, is in Los Angeles. Is nowhere near Arthur.

He lets himself breathe.

{staring down myself}

Mal and Dom tell him they’re getting married, that Mal is pregnant, that they’ll be staying in Los Angeles for a while. He tells them he’s happy for them--he _is_ \--and knows he won’t be able to visit at all. He presses his hands against Mal’s stomach now, palms against taut skin--barely showing at all, she’s only four and a half months--and wishes he could do so in two months, in four, wishes he could be there in the hospital waiting anxiously and trying not to socialize with her family.

“She’ll be beautiful,” he says.

{watch the way I navigate}

Arthur doesn’t know how he spends the next year. He thinks it’s work-work-always work. It shouldn’t be so different from his life before, but it is. He misses Mal, her soft touches, the only ones he could ever tolerate. He misses Dom, his unique perspective on things, so different from and yet complimentary to Arthur’s.

But he works, and he hears things, and when he sure it’s safe, he flies to LA and meets his goddaughter for the first time. She’s nine months old and he’s terribly nervous and Mal smiles at him and touches the back of his neck and leans into him, and Dom squints like he’s looking for each and every day carved into Arthur’s skin.

“You know you’re practically the last to see her?” Dom tells him one night when he’s holding Phillipa.

Arthur looks down at her, says quietly, “It’s not that I didn’t want to.”

“Arthur, you’re not the only one running from the authorities. Carrow made it out, and Xera, Nash, even fucking _Eames.”_

He knows--he got the intel that Eames was in California and why else would he be there?--and he hates it.

He closes his eyes when he feels Mal skating her fingers over his scalp, can still vividly imagine the expression on her face as she looks at her husband. “Here, hand her over to Dom. She needs her bath and it’s his turn.”

Dom looks vaguely guilty as he takes her, leaves the room, and Mal crawls up onto the couch to grab Arthur’s hand. “We missed you, you know. That’s all.”

“I know.” He does--he knows it because he felt hollow for months and months, because Mal took him under her wing and she’ll never let him go and he’s grown used to that shelter, that protection, that devotion; he returns it. “I’m... sorry, even so.”

She shakes her head, squeezes. “No, mon cher, I know you had your reasons. You always have reasons for the things you do.”

They sit in silence then, and it’s getting darker, still warm, the windows all through the house open to tempt in a summer breeze. It settles over him like a veil, hiding him from all he fears, and he lets himself fall asleep there on the couch with Mal’s scent in his nose and Dom’s voice singing in the other room.

{deep in the cell of my heart}

Inevitably, he ends up on a job with Eames again. He knows it going in, knows he’ll regret it, but Mal is getting back into the business and this is her first job back and Dom is home with Phillipa so he, Arthur, needs to be with Mal.

Eames blinks when he walks into the warehouse, his only sign of surprise--Arthur had made Mal call him, had not given him any hints that Arthur would be working this job. He greets Mal with a kiss on the cheek, nods at Arthur once, and leans back against the edge of a table to listen. His fingers dig into the material of his sleeves and Arthur has observed him enough to know he’s more thrown off than he seems to be. He wonders whether working together is only hard on his part anymore.

The job will take four weeks, longer than Mal had planned, but necessary to get everything ready in time. Arthur doesn’t relax until he’s left the warehouse each day, until he and Mal are bickering over cheap wine and calling Dom to check in. Eames doesn’t try to approach Arthur, though he can feel his gaze sometimes, heavy on Arthur’s shoulders, on his waist, on the back of his neck.

It’s Arthur that makes the first move between them, against his will. Everybody is out but for him, Mal getting lunch and the architect off... somewhere and Eames trailing his mark. Arthur sighs in frustration, pushes his notebook and the documents away from him, rubs his face.

And then the door slams shut and he’s ducking behind his desk with his gun out before he knows it.

“Team assembly, ducklings!”

He growls under his breath and clicks the safety back on, standing and placing the gun on the desk loudly. Eames stares at him for a moment, surprised, and then he sighs, mouth twisting. “Sorry, shouldn’t have startled you. Is anyone else here?”

“No,” Arthur says, and then he frowns, wondering if he shouldn’t have admitted that. But Eames would have figured it out on his own anyway.

“Ah.” Eames walks over to his desk, sets his things down, pulls out his phone as he sits.

It’s not a comfortable silence in the least. Arthur can hear Eames tapping at his screen, can see him out of his peripheral vision, _knows_ he’s there. Off-putting, distracting.

He weighs the pros and cons--better working relationship, less tension, less fear of the unknown versus having to be sociable and apologetic. His wrist burns with the remembered flare from the dream they’d shared together almost two years ago and he thinks of being like this on the job. He’ll be dead within minutes, and, worse, so will Mal.

“Eames,” he barks, and the other man nearly falls out of his chair. “I apologize for being an asshole to you.”

Eames stares at him, lips parted, and if Arthur liked him, he might have thought it amusing. “That. Er. That’s little out of left field, as they say.”

Arthur goes back to his work and, moments later, Eames returns to his phone.

He forces himself to believe the silence this time is any better.

{has he thoughts within his head}

It all goes to shit because of their architect. Arthur would think the man might be a little more careful, considering he’s wanted in a number of countries, but he leads the authorities right to the warehouse.

All of Arthur’s research is stuffed into a duffel bag, the can of gasoline beneath his desk kicked over, and he’s yelling Mal’s name, over and over and she’s _not answering._ “Mal!” His throat feels like it’s tearing.

And then there’s a hand on his shoulder, pulling, and he panics, kicks out, hand whipping back to pry himself free. “Fuck’s _sake_ ,” Eames gasps, sprawling behind him on the ground, hand at his jaw even as Arthur realizes he’s made a mistake.

“Sorry,” he spits out, and then--”MAL!”

“She’s already out.” Eames pushes himself up again and his eyes widen before he’s back on the floor, Arthur pulled down on top of him, and oh, god, so close, too close, skin on his, he’s being held down, he feels his jaw crack--but no, that’s a memory, that’s not now. Now is Eames shoving him up, Eames’ hand on his arm, tugging and guiding and directing. Now is making it out of the warehouse, somehow, and pressing himself against a wall across the street to calm down as a match is tossed back into the building. The gasoline lights with a vengeance and Arthur stares, the strap of his duffel cutting into his shoulder before Eames is touching him--again, he doesn’t let go.

They get two streets before Arthur can’t take it. He shoves Eames away, slips into an alley, gasps for air and tears his jacket off because _it’s so warm_ and he’s shaking, he sees it as he presses his hands against stone and bends over to throw up again. Dizziness makes him sway, but he flinches away from Eames as he reaches out to steady him.

“No, I--I’m fine, s-sorry.”

He’s stammering--he hasn’t done so in six years, he’s clearly not fine--and he hates knowing that anyone can see this, that _Eames_ can see this, and _where the fuck is Mal?_

“Arthur, Arthur, calm down, shit, we need to get out of here. Mal’s fine, she’s fine, she’ll be fine. Look, come on--okay, okay, no touching, I get it--but come on, Arthur.”

He’s aware that they’re moving again, his duffel now slung over Eames’ shoulder, and his phone is in his hand, dialing without looking, and--“Mal,” he breathes, “thank fuck, Jesus Christ, are you okay?”

“I’m okay, I’m okay, you got out?”

“Yes, yes, I’m--I’m fine,” he says, and he’s so relieved that he starts laughing. “I’m _fine_ , Mal, I’m fine. Mal, _Mal.”_

She sounds close to tears as she laughs with him. “Arthur, I’m going back to LA as soon as I can, okay, but find me in Pairs in a few weeks, mon cher. I’ll look for you. I’ll find you.”

He hangs up, smiling because _she’s okay, she’s okay, she got out okay._

And then he realizes he’s standing in the middle of a sidewalk, the people moving past staring at him, and Eames is just standing there with him, with something that could be concern and something that could be badly-disguised fear on his face. Arthur stares back at him because--

Because Eames just saved his life.

They get a cab together, silently agreeing not to bring this up, and they split up at the airport.

Arthur doesn’t forget, though.

{calling moon and moon}

Mal gets pregnant again and Arthur chances the trip to LA to see her this time, to help around the house for a while, to let Dom moan at him over beers. It’s quiet, peaceful, until Arthur gets news that has him quietly breaking down in the half bathroom.

Dom puts him on the train up to San Jose and he spends seven hours attempting to breathe regularly. He flies out on the first plane he can catch, winds up in Houston, and boards a connection to Madrid.

He makes sure to find a job as quickly as possible.

{I danced to all your fucking soul}

Arthur gets taken in Berlin. It’s not the team they’re after--just him. He kills two of them, bullets fired easily into their skulls, and then he’s taken down and panic makes him forget his training, makes him forget to think--he thrashes away, face down on the floor, trying so hard to get control over himself because then he could _think_ , then he could _escape_ , but it’s panic, isn’t it, and he _can’t_ be logical right now--what a let down that is.

By the time they haul him up, hands bound, weapons lost, his heart is in his throat. They knock him out with a sedative and he wakes on a plane. This was a private job, as he suspected.

New York. He’s back in New York, he sees before they shove him into a car. He tries, valiantly, to systematically shut down the pain receptors in his brain, to steel himself. He’s weak--has always been so--but today he will not give the satisfaction of falling apart. Under true duress, he will pull himself together with composure and strength, or he will break completely.

“Thought I told you I’d kill you if I saw you again. Didn’t you take me seriously? You should have.”

He finds a smile, thinks of pulling the man’s fingernails out with bloody pliers and hearing him scream for mercy, for forgiveness, in a voice that sounds like his own until it breaks, goes hoarse, disappears entirely. He can imagine it only all too well. “Merry Christmas, Dad.”

Arthur blacks out.

{don’t move your lips}

In time, he forgets how to be afraid of touch, forgets how to panic, because he’s becoming used to it, and after this, he’ll never have to worry again, either way. All the repeated exposure. He’s missing a tooth, yanked out within the first waking hour as a reintroduction; there are new lines that will heal into ugly scars if he lives long enough; his wrist, ever so fragile, is broken and pained and he has no way to splint it. He laughs now, maybe hysterically, and lets himself hate.

Arthur is not his dad, has never wanted to be, but his father seems intent on turning him into a clone or killing him off. An international spy, a good guy, and then there’s Arthur, an international criminal, a thief of secrets and information, and he can’t see the difference, really.

He won’t break, he won’t bow down, he will not change course. Arthur has chosen his life, and if this is the sacrifice he’s making for all those years of freedom, so be it. He is a dreamer, a point man--a damn good one, in fact--and he knows this knowledge is a part of him which cannot be tortured out of his psyche.

He thinks of Mal, Mal who saved him from all of this, and his loyalties lie with her, with Dom, with Phillipa and their as-of-yet unnamed son. Family, those people, moreso than this man looking on, expressionless, as Arthur denies him again and again and again.

And then he thinks of a hand around his arm, not to hurt, not to soothe, but to save. He remembers, somehow, that there are people in the world--two, to be precise--who thought his life worthwhile.

He tries to make that number three, because three is a nicer number than two and it shouldn’t be that hard to think himself salvageable, right? He tries.

{I’ll be everything I’m not}

Arthur has no compunctions against screaming. It’d be impossible not to--he tried at first, but when he bit through his tongue and choked on his own blood, he stopped holding back. He has half-fevered dreams of someone hearing him now, and of all the things to dream naturally, this is both a nightmare and a miracle.

{got an answer in your story today}

The dream community is a community which thrives on information, gossip, and exchanges traded through a network of contacts. Arthur prided himself once on his reputation among the network--he knew everyone, and everyone knew him. Passing on a message to someone he’d lost took less than a day where it might have taken three weeks, even among those who didn’t get along.

So when his dad finally brings someone in to test Arthur’s proficiency in handling torture within a dream, he knows everything will change. Hope flares hot and vivid in his chest.

Zimmer stares for half a second when he finally recognizes Arthur before an expression of carefully bored attention settles on his face. He knows better than to let on his surprise, and listens carefully as Arthur’s father outlines the techniques he should use, descriptive and matter-of-fact. When the IV slips into his arm, Arthur’s heart is beating fast and light and free. It doesn’t matter that his father is coming into the dream with them--he doesn’t know the dreamscape the way Arthur does, has never gone down long enough to understand.

He may be the subject of the dream, but Arthur has his tricks and he hasn’t spent seven years learning all he can about dreams to forget the knowledge when he can use it most. It only takes him three minutes in the dream to kill his father. He has seconds before he’ll wake up topside.

“Say I killed you before you could do anything. Tell Mal,” he says, grasping Zimmer’s arms. “And... and tell her to consult Eames and Fenia--”

Arthur gasps awake and revels in the pain when it disguises his smile.

{another knife in my hands}

“You shouldn’t have fucked with what’s not yours.” Mal is not smiling, not dangerously, not viciously. No, she stares down at Arthur’s father with a quiet, dark hatred in her eyes, her Glock steady in her hand. “You seem surprised that we’d come for him, criminals like us. Loyalty among thieves is such a rare thing, you think. But Arthur is my point man, and my friend. Do you remember, Mr Furion, coming to me for a job years and years ago? I turned you down because he means more to me than money or success, because Arthur is _mine_ and will never be yours again.”

Dom is kneeling in front of Arthur, feeling along his jawline lightly, face a contrast in anger and apology. Arthur knows Fenian is in the other room, can hear him checking bodies for weapons and signs of life, and he knows, _knows,_ that Eames stands behind him, silent, unmoving. Present.

“Arthur?”

He looks up, pushes Dom’s hands away and tries to stand. He stumbles, does not flinch as Eames reaches out to steady him, even as Eames’ hand closes around his elbow, light, supportive, tentative as if expecting to be shoved off. Arthur feels something in his stomach, imagining Eames’ surprise when he’s allowed this.

Mal holds her gun out, an invitation, and Arthur shakes his head. “Don’t waste your bullets.”

“He’s not leaving here _alive,_ ” Eames argues, finally speaking up. He sounds... furious, like Arthur’s never heard before, and the thing in Arthur’s stomach that wants out is laugh, because these are voices he thought he’d never hear again outside of his memories. He wants to laugh because it hurts, it all hurts, and he’s been laughing instead of crying this whole time and changing that--changing that will make everything--he can’t--he won’t be able to _handle_ it or keep it together and he _can’t_ let go right now, _has_ to make it through this.

“So break his neck, if you want. Just don’t waste any resources or leave traces of us behind.”

He walks out of the room then, back stiff, and does not feel regret or an urge to take out everything he has suffered on the man who caused it. He is tired.

{is there anyone I could call}

It doesn’t take him long to heal, mentally. After all, he knew--hoped, dreamed--that someone would find him and it would end. It has. He’s alive, and he’s whole, and he’s sleeping in Mal’s spare bedroom in LA without having to fear discovery.

And he owes his life to her, again, will always owe her everything. And to Dom and Fenian and even Zimmer.

And to Eames, doubly now, no longer easily ignored.

He picks up his phone--new, the list of contacts slowly growing--and calls him. Leaves him a voicemail.

_Thank you. If you still want an explanation, I can give one now. But, uh, thanks, for all of that. I mean, that is--fuck. I owe you. Let me know if you need anything and I’ll do my best to get it for you. It’s the least I can--I... appreciate your help, Mr. Eames._

Eames asks to meet him in Corfu, and Arthur agrees.

{more than a feeling}

“I recognized you when I first worked with you, you know.”

Eames looks down into his drink as Arthur pauses, halfway through sitting down across the table.

“What?”

“I recognized you, that first job, in Prague? I mean, I didn’t know who you were, but you looked familiar. And it took me until New York to realize why.” Eames looks up at him then, and if Arthur could ever be intimidated after what he’s lived through now--no quick and easy escape, no waking up from that prolonged nightmare--he would be in this moment.

“I... have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, slowly, as he takes his seat, jacket hung carefully over the back of his chair. He tries to think, wonders how Eames would know his face but not his name, so long ago.

Eames won’t look him in the eye. It makes him nervous.

But then, he’s always been nervous around Eames, since their first job together, on every one since, and some day Arthur will need to figure out why and deal with it.

“You... probably don’t remember. I saw you once before the job in Prague, I just... wasn’t sure you were the same person. It was dark, that night, and--you were thinner.” Eames takes a breath, finally meets his eyes, and there’s something dark there that tightens Arthur’s muscles. “You were also bruised and bleeding and broken, and facing you in Prague, I couldn’t piece it together, because you were so _different_.”

“I... what? How--?” He stares, feeling sick. “Eames, can you just tell me straight out and stop dancing around it?”

“The night you ran away from home, I saw you, and, I--I really never forgot but I wasn’t sure,” he says, finally, and Arthur flashes back, remembers the vivid stain of his blood on a crisp white shirt under a street light. There were shadows visible through the shirt, dark patches he hadn’t questioned, hadn’t even consciously noticed, and Arthur looks at Eames now and knows they were tattoos, that the man he ran into had been Eames.

He wonders vaguely if something in him remembered or guessed, associated Eames with his father.

“Oh,” he says quietly, and he looks away, folds his arms on the table.

Silence reigns supreme then, tense, filled with memories and the sound of glass clinking around them.

Arthur finally stands, pulls his coat on again, and walks around the table. He pauses as he’s passing Eames, reaches out, hand unsteady, and brushes the side of his arm, stares at the hinge of his jaw.

He leaves.

{I had a heart but the queen has been overthrown}

Arthur doesn’t like to think people are replaceable. He likes to think every life is worth something only it can be worth. Maybe this is because he knows the value of a life, knows how much it means to save one, and it would take away just as much as it gives if one were to lose life.

So when Mal dies, when she goes, when she leaves Arthur and Dom and the kids and everything behind her, Arthur flies to Prague and drinks until he falls asleep, staring up at his ceiling, dry-eyed and fearful and so fucking sad he doesn’t know what to do with it. He thinks that Mal will never casually brush his hair back from his face again, thinks that she’ll never touch his hand or lean over his shoulder to look at something. He misses it already, the knowledge that she is alive and well and maybe absent but still reachable.

He can’t follow her this time. He knows she wouldn’t _want_ him to follow, and he knows himself, knows that, by now, he is worth saving for reasons he’ll never truly understand but believes nonetheless, and after all the effort she put into keeping him alive he has to respect her wishes. It’s her influence that keeps him from picking up the gun on his sidetable and shooting himself out of reality like he shoots himself out of a dream, casual, no repercussions. Mal saved him, and Eames saved him, and Mal might be dead but he, Arthur, is still alive, just like she wanted it. He owes it to her.

 _Owed_ it to her.

And now, now, the only person he owes... is Eames.

So Arthur resolves himself, and he falls asleep and dreams of Mal’s perfume washing over him and her hand on his cheek.

{you’ve been the only thing that’s right in a lifetime}

Dom needs him so Arthur goes because Mal took care of them both, loved them both, and now they are the only things either of them has of her--until Dom’s projection starts diving in the dreams with them, and every time she kills him, Arthur thinks of the times she’s saved him, thinks of the real Mal who lived eight years of her life loving him and guiding him. He thinks of her standing over his father, cold and calm and so ready to take her revenge, only _for_ him instead of _on_ him like the projection does.

 _His_ memory of Mal--his Mal, not Dom’s--stays with him. He will never forget her, even in the face of this impostor, and he won’t let Dom start believing a lie.

He doesn’t forget Eames, either, even when he’s with Dom all the time. It’s been months since their last conversation in that crowded smoky bar, secrets finally revealed, and Arthur has had all the time in the world to think about it.

He mails a letter.

{so take this night}

Arthur takes a job in Prague, and when he gets off the train, Eames is waiting for him, tracking him with cautious eyes, serious and wary. Arthur walks up to him, stands, stares and takes in small changes, takes in similarities. He steps forward.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says, and sets his bag down at his feet. “I still owe you.”

“Arthur, it doesn’t work like that.”

“In this business, it does. But it’s more than that.” And he reaches out and takes Eames’ hand, presses it against his chest; his heart hammers and he’s sure Eames can feel it. “See? You make me nervous.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m not going to hurt you, you know. And you don’t have to take jobs with me simply because you’re proving something to yourself, Arthur.” Eames tugs his hand away, frowns. “Why did you _ask_ me to take this one?”

“Because I love Prague,” Arthur says, stepping back and picking up his bag again. “And I want to redo this all. I’m not running away because I have nothing to fear anymore, not now.”

“I... am still not sure I understand.”

“I’m not sure I get it either, but I’m starting to figure it out, I think. Are you ready to start the job?”

Eames shakes his head, but he walks out at Arthur’s side, one of Arthur’s bags in his hand.

{trying not to drag my feet}

When they do the inception job, Arthur thinks it can’t be done, and then he thinks Mal would have said differently, and he kind of wants to be proven wrong for that reason alone. If she were alive, she would find a way to pull it off, and he would guide her through it, and so he tries, for Dom. And when Eames shows up in the warehouse, he takes care to brush the back of Arthur’s neck with just his fingertips, feather-light, curious, and Arthur meets his eyes and offers the tiniest smile as a greeting.

His neck burns. Not in the way his wrist burnt the first time Eames ever touched him, not the way Mal’s light touches of affection ever made him feel warm and cherished. It’s more heated, lines of fire and intensity and Arthur is not nervous anymore, as if the touch has burned away all of his resistance and fear, scorching him down to nothing. He _gets_ it.

He tells Eames when they have the warehouse to themselves, standing at the edge of his desk, and he lets Eames back him up against it, lets Eames reach out and place his hands on Arthur’s waist, and then he reaches up and twines in and he thinks of things worth saving and savoring.

Arthur curls his fingers into Eames’ shirt and closes his eyes and breathes him in. He doesn’t say anything, only presses himself forward and lets it all go.

{one of these days the sky’s gonna break}


End file.
